Several hundred people attended the celebratory dinner, which exuded a mood of uproarious good spirits. “The number of cheerful voices, with the clangor of knives and forks, made a din of a very extraordinary nature and most delightful influence,” James Tilton wrote.25 After suffering through the obligatory thirteen toasts, Washington made a toast with a pertinent point: “Competent powers to Congress for general purposes.”26 The toast suggested that Washington’s mind still fretted over the inadequate Articles of Confederation and that his postwar retirement might be short-lived. The message, in many ways, foretold the rest of his political life. After the dinner Washington attended a brilliantly lit ball, dancing first with twenty-two-year-old Martha Rolle Maccubin, a prominent local belle. With women fawning all over him—the fashionable style dictated thirteen curls tumbling down the neck—Washington never left the dance floor and must have grown slightly giddy from the adulation. “The general danced every set, that the ladies might have the pleasure of dancing with him, or, as it has since been handsomely expressed, get a touch of him,” reported Tilton.27

The next morning Washington squeezed in a last personal letter to Baron von Steuben. Among other things, he reassured Steuben that the country would reward his inestimable service during the war. The quiet fervor of this letter says something about the enduring tie uniting the two men. “I wish to make use of this last moment of my public life to signify in the strongest terms my entire approbation of your conduct,” Washington wrote. “. . . This is the last letter I shall ever write while I continue in the service of my country. The hour of my resignation is fixed at twelve this day; after which I shall become a private citizen on the banks of the Potomac, where I shall be glad to embrace you and to testify [to] the great esteem and consideration” in which he held him.28

Washington’s resignation was a minutely prepared affair, designed to show a doubting world that this new republic would not degenerate into disorder. Shortly before noon he arrived at the State House, wearing his familiar uniform for the last time. He was greeted by Charles Thomson, the secretary of Congress, who led him to a seat on the dais, where he was flanked by David Humphreys and Benjamin Walker. In the audience was a sparse contingent of legislators, only twenty representatives, who sat with their hats on. This was no sign of disrespect but an antimonarchical gesture: in European kingdoms, commoners always stood in the presence of royalty and doffed their hats. Then the doors opened, and the leading Maryland politicians and town gentry poured into the hall, with men crowding into seats downstairs and bright-eyed ladies packing the galleries. Everyone pressed into the hall to sneak a peek at this historic transaction.

As the audience sat in rapt silence, Thomas Mifflin rose. “Sir,” he intoned, “the United States in Congress assembled are prepared to receive your communications.” 29 Following a precise script, Washington rose and bowed to the congressmen, who removed their hats out of respect and then returned them. As Washington spoke, he held the speech in his right hand, which began to shake so violently that he had to steady it with his left.

In a voice hoarse with emotion, he recalled his feelings of inadequacy when first appointed commander in chief and stated that he had been sustained only “by a confidence in the rectitude of our cause, the support of the supreme power of the union, and the patronage of heaven.”30 He paid tribute to the men who had served with him and gently urged Congress to take care of them, reminding them of the troops sent home unpaid. It was at this point that he had to grasp the speech with two trembling hands. When he recommended “our dearest country to the protection of Almighty God,” said James McHenry, Washington’s voice “faltered and sank and the whole house felt his agitations.”31 After a pause he regained his composure and closed on a poetic note, hinting at his permanent withdrawal: “Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theater of action; and bidding an affectionate farewell to this august body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my commission and take my leave of all the employments of public life.”32 Then, drawing the original parchment commission from his coat, he handed it to Thomas Mifflin along with a folded copy of his speech. The emotional impact was overpowering. “The General was so much affected himself that everybody felt for him,” commented a woman named Mary Ridout, who said that “many tears were shed.”33

In dignified fashion, Thomas Mifflin gave a prepared response that had been drafted by Thomas Jefferson, then a delegate from Virginia, who was also swept up in the Washington worship and fully understood the unprecedented nature of Washington’s surrender of power. As Jefferson later wrote to Washington, “The moderation and virtue of a single character . . . probably prevented this revolution from being closed, as most others have been, by a subversion of that liberty it was intended to establish.”34 In the speech, Mifflin cited the peerless way Washington had “conducted the great military conflict with wisdom and fortitude, invariably regarding the rights of the civil powers.”35

After Mifflin’s speech, there came more formal bowing, and Washington prepared to leave. He shook hands and bade farewell individually to each member of Congress, thus ending his years of military service. Before the speech he had packed his bags and checked out of George Mann’s Tavern, so that his horse and attendants awaited him at the State House door, enabling him to make a quick escape. He mounted his horse and rode off in a hush. “It was a solemn and affecting spectacle, such a one as history does not present,” said McHenry. “The spectators all wept and there was hardly a member of Congress who did not drop tears.”36 A small delegation escorted Washington to the nearby South River ferry. Then he was finally alone on horseback with his two aides and servants, heading for Mount Vernon.

The figure hurrying back to his long-forgotten past had just accomplished something more extraordinary than any military feat during the war. At war’s end, he stood alone at the pinnacle of power, but he never became drunk with that influence, as had so many generals before him, and treated his commission as a public trust to be returned as soon as possible to the people’s representatives. Throughout history victorious generals had sought to parlay their fame into political power, whereas Washington had only a craving for privacy. Instead of glorying in his might, he feared its terrible weight and potential misuse. He had long lived in the shadow of the historical analogy to the Roman patriot Cincinnatus, and now, with his resignation at Annapolis, that analogy was complete. When John Trumbull later painted a series of portraits for the U.S. Capitol, he chose Washington’s resignation at Annapolis as one of the crowning moments of the founding era and the highest proof of Washington’s virtue. At the time of the resignation, Trumbull was in London and recorded European wonderment at the news, saying that it “excites the astonishment and admiration of this part of the world.”37

Washington had served as commander in chief for eight and a half years, the equivalent of two presidential terms. His military triumphs had been neither frequent nor epic in scale. He had lost more battles than he had won, had botched several through strategic blunders, and had won at Yorktown only with the indispensable aid of the French Army and fleet. But he was a different kind of general fighting a different kind of war, and his military prowess cannot be judged by the usual scorecard of battles won and lost. His fortitude in keeping the impoverished Continental Army intact was a major historic accomplishment. It always stood on the brink of dissolution, and Washington was the one figure who kept it together, the spiritual and managerial genius of the whole enterprise: he had been resilient in the face of every setback, courageous in the face of every danger. He was that rare general who was great between battles and not just during them. The constant turnover of his army meant that he continually had to start from scratch in training his men. He had to blend troops from different states into a functioning national force, despite deep ideological fears of a standing army. And before the French alliance, he had lacked the sea power that was all-important in defeating the British.